idaho slated for radioactive waste
Idaho Slated to be Navy Dumping Ground
By Sharon Fisher, 7-25-08
Still dealing with the fallout of being a repository for contaminated sand from Kuwait, Idaho is reportedly slated to be the dumping ground for literal fallout: radioactive remnants from a World War II-era Navy shipyard, according to a San Francisco alternative newsweekly.
“Currently, the Navy is proposing to excavate soil from IR-07 and IR-18, including known mercury and methane spots, and ship it to dumps in Idaho and Utah,” said the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in a July 16 story.
IR-07 and IR-18 are two plots of land identified by a 2004 Navy report as being dumps for radioluminescent devices and, perhaps, debris from sandblasting dry docks at the Hunter’s Point Shipyard that had been used to decontaminate 79 ships that had been exposed to a 1946 nuclear test.
“[C]esium-137, cobalt-60, plutonium-239, radium-226 (from radioactive decay of uranium-238) and strontium-90 could be present in underground drains and sewers,” the article read.
Environmental activists in the Bay Area are protesting the move, suggesting instead that the parcel be capped to prevent migration of the contamination.
“Pamela Calvert, deputy director of Literacy for Environmental Justice, told the Guardian she’s worried about shipping the contamination elsewhere,” the article continued. “‘I’m really concerned that we don’t solve problems in Bayview by creating ones for another community,’ Calvert said. ‘It’s best to deal with it here. There is no such thing as “away.” It’s someone else’s backyard.’”
Ours.
[End of article]
The feds still see everything between the Mississippi and the coastal ranges as the Great American Desert where colonization has generally failed...
Comment By will, 7-26-08The author of the story doesn't say where in Idaho or Utah? Do we know, or is the reader (this one from Missouri) expected to already have this info?
A lot of holes in this story. No editor, I suppose.
Not sure whether you're referring to me or the original story in the Bay Guardian. If you mean me, "Idaho" was the only thing the story said; if you mean the original story, yes, I agree it would have been nice to have more detail, but we work with the sources we have, not the ones we wish we had. Thanks for reading all the way from Missouri!
Comment By Sharon Fisher, 7-26-08Two of the references I've found thus far for the report are unavailable til Monday, but here is one. It does not say where the material might go
http://www.communitywindowontheshipyard.org/factsheets/factsheet-HPS-HRA-volII.pdf
Has anyone as the Idaho candidates for U.S. Senate the question about protecting Idaho from become the toxic dump for the US?
Why are political leaders in Idaho, especially the Governor and those rural legislators so unwilling to protect the public's interest?
Is it unpatriotic to stand up for or states rights?
Sorry, just came across this site. Here is the Idaho info, from the BRAC Environmental Coordinator at the Hunters Point Shipyard:
Company: American Ecology (Subsidiary is US Ecology)
Waste Stream Flow: Hazardous chemical waste and low level
radiological
waste landfill
Transportation: Trucking is used to transport the low-level
waste
Location: Grandview, Idaho, Grandview is 70 miles southeast of
Boise,
Idaho in the Owyhee dessert of Idaho.
http://www.americanecology.com/grand_view.htm
And here is re: Utah:
Company: Energy Solutions
Waste Stream Flow: level radiological waste landfill
Transportation: Using the local railhead, rail is used to
transport the
low-level waste
Location: Clive, Utah, Clive Utah is southwest of the Great
Salt Lake
in Utah and 75 miles West of Salt Lake City
http://www.energysolutions.com/?id=OTkw